Albinius ‘Danny Boy’ Felesianu blamed dubious officiating after losing out on the WBO Africa lightweight title to Zimbabwe’s Peter Pambeni in Windhoek on Saturday.
Pambeni scored a majority decision in their ‘Clash of the Titans’ main event hosted by MTC Salute Boxing Academy at Ramatex.
The Zimbabwean landed more punches to the body and head, while the Namibian found the target with the heavier punches, leading to the new champion losing a tooth.
Felesianu was incandescent with fury when two judges scored the fight in favour of the visitor while the third scored it in his favour, saying he should have been declared the victor.
“These judges robbed me, I won the fight fair and square. I landed more powerful shots than Pambeni. I hurt him. He lost a tooth, and had a broken nose. He never hurt me. I did most of the attacking, he just ran around the ring trying to avoid my punches,” Felesianu charged.
Meanwhile, Pambeni’s promoter Stalin Mau Mau preferred to focus on the future, with his fighter eyeing a world title shot.
“We are heading for greater heights. We are planning big. We are going to fight for the world title itself. Pambeni did enough to win the fight, and Danny Boy is a good boxer. He was just over-ambitious in trying to go for a knockout against my boxer,” Mau Mau said.
Both fighters started off slowly, but it was Pambeni who took control of the fight from the second round by landing telling body blows.
The Namibian then hurt the Zimbabwean in the fourth round, resulting in Pambeni suffering a broken nose, which bled throughout the fight.
Sensing a weakness in his opponent, Felesianu went for the knockout, but found his opponent a tough nut to crack.
While looking to land the big punches, Danny Boy exposed himself to quick combination punches from Pambeni, who was using his jab effectively.
In the end, the Zimbabwean did enough to win the WBO African title, which will see him cracking the top 15 of the world rankings, and be on track for the world title.
In other fights, Mujandjae Kasuto beat Limbani Lano from Malawi, while Antony Jaarman accounted for Simeon Tcheta of Malawi in their middleweight bout.
In a heavyweight bout, Igor Shevadzutyi of Ukraine beat Alick Gogoda of Malawi with a first-round technical knockout.
Lucas Ndafoluma beat Enock Msambudzi of Zimbabwe, while Nathaniel Kakololo won on a majority decision against Toto Helebe of South Africa.
In the Namibia national super-featherweight title fight, Lazarus Shaningwa beat David Shinuna.
–namibian.com.na
